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January 9, 2025, 9:45 PM
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Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat / Reuters:
Frank McCourt's Project Liberty says it made a formal bid to ByteDance to acquire TikTok's US assets, aiming to keep the app alive without its current algorithm  —  Entrepreneur and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt's Project Liberty and its consortium of partners in The People's Bid …
Financial Times:
Sources: Elon Musk and his right-wing allies discussed how to destabilize the UK Labour government and remove PM Keir Starmer, beyond Musk's aggressive X posts  —  Technology billionaire interested in building support for another political party, notably Reform UK
Financial Times:
Analysis: Elon Musk's UK obsession is driven by a few X accounts; an ex-Twitter exec says Musk may be the first tech leader to be radicalized by his own product  —  Tech billionaire's posts about grooming gangs scandal have elevated issue  —  Elon Musk's recent obsession with UK politics …
Ashley Capoot / CNBC:
Google and Microsoft donate $1M to Trump's inauguration; Google says the donation, a YouTube livestream, and a homepage event link align with past inaugurations  —  Google donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration fund, becoming the latest major tech company to try …
Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica:
The Linux Foundation launches an initiative to fund developing Chromium projects in a “neutral space”, with support from Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Opera  —  But it's really a “neutral space” for funding and support, corralling together some big names with a stake in the future of Chrome's open source roots, Chromium.
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
Sources: many Meta employees are furious about its moderation changes that allow “allegations of mental illness” when based on “gender or sexual orientation”  —  Meta's decision to specifically allow users to call LGBTQ+ people “mentally ill” has sparked widespread backlash at the company.
Colby Hall / Mediaite:
GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin says Mark Zuckerberg met with Trump the day before announcing that Meta would replace fact-checking with Community Notes
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Meta revamping its content moderation systems with Community Notes is good, but Zuckerberg pretending it's about free speech is bad, and the timing is stupid
Carly Page / TechCrunch:
Ivanti warns that threat actors exploited a critical-rated zero-day in its widely used Connect Secure VPN tool to compromise its corporate customers' networks  —  U.S. software giant Ivanti has warned that a zero-day vulnerability in its widely-used enterprise VPN appliance has been exploited …
Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A US judge rules that Google must face a class action claiming Google collected users' personal data from their phones after switching off Web & App Activity  —  Google failed to persuade a federal judge to dismiss a privacy class action claiming it collected personal data from people's cellphones …
Ryan Browne / CNBC:
Ubisoft says it is appointing advisers to review and pursue strategic options after an October 2024 report said its majority backers were considering a buyout  —  French video game publisher Ubisoft said Thursday it's appointing advisors to review and pursue strategic options after a report …
Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
xAI launches a Grok app in beta for iOS in multiple countries, including the US, Australia, and India, and is preparing a dedicated Grok.com website  —  Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, is testing out a standalone iOS app for its chatbot, Grok, which was available only to X users until now.
Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:
Disney says it has an estimated 157M global MAUs watching ad-supported content across its streaming services Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+, including 112M US users  —  Disney said Wednesday it has an estimated 157 million global monthly active users watching ad-supported content across its streaming platforms — Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+.
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch:
Court docs: Mark Zuckerberg gave the Meta team training Llama AI models approval to use data from LibGen, which offers access to pirated, copyrighted material  —  Counsel for plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit filed against Meta allege that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave the green light …
Richard Lawler / The Verge:
Apple says it “has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles” and never sold it for advertising or other purposes, after paying $95M to settle a lawsuit  —  A Siri lawsuit settlement over privacy issues has dredged up old rumors about iPhone ad targeting …
Heather Landi / Fierce Healthcare:
Hippocratic AI, which is building an LLM for health care, raised a $141M Series B, valuing the company at $1.64B, and launches a health care AI agent app store  —  Hippocratic AI funding round generative AI Kleiner Perkins  —  Hippocratic AI is kicking off 2025 with a bang.

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More News

Stephen Totilo / Game File:
December court filing: Activision revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops III cost $450M+ to make, Modern Warfare cost $640M+, and Black Ops Cold War cost $700M+
Marina Temkin / TechCrunch:
Innovaccer, which aggregates medical data and plans to introduce multiple AI co-pilots and agents for the healthcare industry, raised a $275M Series F
Annie Palmer / CNBC:
Amazon launches Amazon Retail Ad Service to let companies show ads in search results, product pages, and other areas of their own websites, initially in the US
Sarah Emerson / Forbes:
Sources: Eric Schmidt has spent the last few months working on Hooglee, an AI startup that describes its mission as “democratizing video creation with AI”

Earlier Picks

Wall Street Journal:
Blackstone invests $300M in DDN, which helps firms more efficiently store and analyze data for AI and HPC, at a $5B valuation; it is DDN's first outside funding
Vince Dioquino / Decrypt:
Filing: the Northern District Court of California gives the US government final approval to sell 69,370 BTC, worth $6.5B, seized in its Silk Road investigation
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